Georgia Milestones testing data released for Buford area schools

The Georgia Department of Education released its Milestones data for the 2023-2024 school year and local schools scored above the state average in most areas tested.

The Milestones tested students in the third through the eighth grades with end-of-grade assessments in the Spring of 2024 while students in grades nine through 12 received end-of-course assessments in the Winter of 2023.

The data was broken down by the state average, district average and the averages of individual schools. The area schools that data was pulled for in the Buford area include Buford City Schools and schools in the Lanier and Seckinger clusters for Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS).

The Buford Academy leads area schools in the Third Grade End-of-Grade Assessment in Reading with 87.6% of its third graders reading above grade level. White Oak Elementary School (85.1%), Ivy Creek (82.2%), Sugar Hill (75.4%) and Harmony (74.0%) round out the top five highest-performing elementary schools in the 3rd Grade Reading Assessments.

Buford City Schools was the No. 4 school district in Georgia for the highest percentage of third-grade students who tested above their grade in reading on the 2024 Georgia Milestones tests with 87.6%. Decatur City and Oconee County were the highest districts with 88.5 followed by Bremen City in third with 88.4%. GCPS averaged 67.3%, placing them outside the top 50 highest-performing schools in this assessment. The state average was 64.5%.

Sycamore Elementary School was the lowest-performing school in the area. In the third-grade reading assessment, Sycamore’s average for students reading above grade level was 66.2%, lower than the GCPS district average of 67.3% but above the state average of 64.5%. Sycamore failed to score above the district-level and state-level averages in the fourth-grade reading assessment with 54.8% of its students reading above their grade level compared to 61.1% for GCPS and 55.9% for Georgia. Sycamore caught up to and surpassed the GCPS and state averages in the fifth-grade reading assessment.

Students were tested in Science in the fifth grade where Ivy Creek, White Oak, Buford Senior Academy, Harmony and Sugar Hill were the top-performing schools. In the eighth grade, Social Studies assessments were taken with Jones Middle School as the top school followed by Buford Middle School and Lanier Middle School.

At the high school level students were tested in American Literature and Composition, Biology and U.S. History. Buford High School was the highest-performing high school, surpassing Seckinger and Lanier, in all three assessments.

Below are tables with the data mentioned above. The full 2023-2024 Georgia Milestones data can be found on the Georgia Department of Education’s website.